A world-renowned heart surgeon has named everyday foods he says can "pull cholesterol out of your body", helping to lower the risk of heart attack and stroke. Cholesterol is known as a "silent killer" because it can seriously harm your health without showing any symptoms, building up in the walls of blood vessels when levels are too high.
Understanding good and bad cholesterol
Although cholesterol raises fear in many people because of its potentially lethal effects, it is also misunderstood. The body cannot survive without it, as there are two different kinds: "good" and "bad". The bad type is LDL cholesterol, which can build up in blood vessel walls and lead to a heart attack or stroke if there is too much. HDL, or "good", cholesterol removes bad cholesterol from the arteries, carrying it back to the liver and reducing risk.
Foods that lower cholesterol
Dr Jeremy London, board-certified in general surgery, vascular surgery and thoracic surgery, said on social media that certain foods can "actually pull cholesterol out of your body". He said: "All of these foods remove the atherogenic, or dangerous, cholesterol but they do it in different ways."
Oats contain a lot of fibre, which forms a gel in the gastrointestinal tract that binds to bile and is passed out in stool. The liver then senses it needs to make more bile, which requires cholesterol, and pulls cholesterol from the bloodstream. Harvard Medical School has backed this, explaining how oats' soluble fibre is effective against high cholesterol by binding to it in the digestive system so it is excreted instead of circulating in the blood.
Beans and lentils work much the same way through this fibre mechanism, absorbing water to create a sticky gel in the gut that stops cholesterol from being absorbed. The British Heart Foundation says: "Studies show that having 5g to 10g of viscous fibre a day can help lower LDL cholesterol by 7 per cent."
Nuts and olive oil
Dr London highlighted walnuts as particularly effective, saying they trigger the liver to make more receptors to pull cholesterol from the bloodstream. The British Heart Foundation names almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, peanuts and macadamia nuts as ways to lower cholesterol, stating: "Studies show that having around 67g per day can lower LDL cholesterol by 7 per cent."
Extra virgin olive oil does not decrease the amount of cholesterol in the blood, according to Dr London, but a PREDIMED study showed a 30% decrease in major cardiovascular events with regular use in combination with a Mediterranean diet. Dr London concluded: "No single food alone can do what medicines can accomplish as far as lowering cholesterol level. But eat these foods consistently and they can compound and the impact can be truly impressive."
